


aches

by kurooos



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Inspired by Art, M/M, Poor Prompto, Sickfic, sick prompto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 15:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12729585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurooos/pseuds/kurooos
Summary: Prompto ends up getting sick and potions aren’t working. This ends up landing him in the hospital.





	aches

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kaciart on tumblr, they [drew this piece](http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/164874800493) and I really wanted to write something for it.  
> Terribly sorry this is kind of choppy and the 3rd person POV switches, what I hope is gradually, from Gladio to Prompto. Not the best I could write but I've been sitting on this fic for weeks and I'm done! Happy reading y'all.

The world was shaking, vibrating, whatever the hell was happening. Not even the soft hum of the Regalia shook him this much when he happened to fall asleep during a ride down a dirt road. 

Gladio cracked opened his eyes, took in a soft breath, and peeked at the ceiling above him before the bed started to jiggle again. The warm body that had gone to bed with him last night was no longer there, leaving a cold space where Gladio would have rather had a thin body to curl up against and hug onto. 

His bedmate however, was not asleep. Instead, Prompto was hunched over himself on the side of the bed. Gladio could see in the low light that Prompto was the source of the vibrating bed, his left leg bouncing up and down rapidly. His chest expanded again, shoulders hunching up further, and Gladio barely caught the soft, quiet heave from Prompto as he leaned over slightly. 

It made Gladio frown. 

He reached out and carefully brushed his hand over Prompto’s back, not even getting a flinch out of him, just another quiet and hushed heave into something between his legs. Gladio took a mental wager on it probably being the trashcan from the bathroom. 

Prompto didn’t respond to any of his gentle questions, simply staying hunched over himself with his arms hugged around his stomach, silent tears running off his cheeks with every empty retch between his legs. 

“Ignis? Ignis.” Gladio called, trying to stay quiet to not startle the prince awake but enough to get Ignis up. It took him another quiet hiss of the advisor’s name before he was rolling over and glancing at Gladio and then Prompto. Upon seeing the state of their fourth member, Ignis settled himself up on an elbow, trying to wake himself up further. 

Obviously something was wrong. Tears ran down Prompto’s face, pale and blanched even in the dim light of their hotel room. His eyes were distant, off somewhere between the beds and the floorboards while his body trembled. He looked uncomfortably feverish and Ignis wondered how this could have happened so quickly. 

Only but a few hours ago they were all getting ready for bed, Prompto bounding around the room with tired energy playing with the prince until a grumpy Ignis told them both to get into separate beds and go to sleep already.

Now it seemed that if Gladio’s hand wasn’t against his back, Prompto might be falling over. Gladio didn’t want the poor guy to faceplant the floor. 

“Prompto? Are you alright?”

Ignis’ voice was rough from sleep but it didn’t do anything to startle Prompto out of whatever was happening. 

The prince behind Ignis of course was sleeping like a boulder, hair tousled from his bed time restlessness. It seemed that most of the time unless there was a monster outside their tent or an angry innkeeper at their door, Noctis kept sleeping. 

Ignis sat up in bed, legs softly swinging out from under the sheets as he sat across from Prompto, leaning towards him gently, as if he was waiting to reach out and touch. With another unanswered call of Prompto’s name, Ignis looked at Galdio. 

“How long has he been like this?” 

“I don’t know. I woke up to him like this.”

The two of them try and keep their voices down, not wanting to wake the prince up from his sleep. But it seems that this whole ordeal with Prompto not feeling well is triggering at Noctis’ “Prompto Senses” as Gladio likes teasing about (“It’s kind of creepy how in sync you two are, if you think about it. You always know when the other is in trouble or doing something.” “We’ve been around each other for a long time! It’s a friend thing.” “A friend thing...sure. Where’s my friend thing then? We’ve known each other longer”). Gladio watches Noctis roll over onto his side in time to catch Prompto hunching over with a barely there choke when Ignis presses fingers to his forehead and nape. 

“Prom? Y’kay?” Noctis slurs, a hand coming up from under the blankets to rub an eye. 

It must be that question combined with the hands all on his body that Prompto really responds to. A miserable and weak groan falls past his lips.

Prompto wishes he could laugh it off and play that he’s okay as usual. That he could hide behind a half-hearted joke and smile or say something clutsy and the three would roll their eyes and move on. But Gladio’s hand is warm and comforting rubbing up over his back to a shoulder and down again and Ignis’ palm and fingers are cool on the heated skin of his neck and forehead. He doesn't really have any energy to downplay his sickness when they keep touching him so gently and looking at him with blatant concern. 

Prompto feels another sickening wave clutch at his throat, thick and heavy and he ducks his head down hard, stomach flipping as he dry heaves again over the trashcan. He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing that nothing is coming up or not. He’s at least glad the three he’s with don’t have to see that, but he’s sure if it did happen, maybe he would feel better after.

Ignis’ fingers gently brush his bangs back, off his forehead and Prompto can’t help but groan again, pitching forward into the soft touch. 

“Gladio, may you hand me a potion, please?” Ignis asks quietly, eyes never leaving Prompto who is only growing paler by the minute. 

It’s concerning how clammy the younger feels and yet the red flush over his cheeks should suggest he be burning up. Ignis doesn’t know what to think, at first he thinks this is something to do with a poison or venom, but he’s never seen symptoms like this. And unless Prompto had run outside during the night and came back in with some bug, Ignis doesn’t know how something could have stung or bit the boy. 

Instead of Gladio returning with a potion, it’s Noctis, nudging the bottle to Ignis’ shoulder as he takes a seat next to him, worriedly looking over Prompto. 

Gladio does, however, settle upright behind Prompto with an antidote in hand. Ignis knows it’s in the case the potion does nothing. 

Ignis’ fingers take Prompto under the chin and the potion goes down without so much as a small cough afterwards. And their worries are confirmed when Prompto shudders like he’s cold then ducks down again, weak fingers trying to hold Ignis’ hand away from his face. 

Nothing comes up, yet the sob following the painful heave means that isn’t a good thing. But they know that if Prompto isn't immediately throwing up the potion that means it took and set in. 

The others exchange equally concerned glances as Gladio passes over the antidote. This time though, Prompto barely makes it halfway through the curative before he’s sputtering and spilling the rest down his front. 

“None of this is working. And he just looks like he's getting worse.” 

To Prompto, he doesn’t know who’s talking anymore. It all blurs together and gets dragged under layers and layers of thickness. He understands that the others and talking about him. Are talking about what’s happening and then what they can do to help. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Prompto can’t care when it kind of blinks out of his mind. There’s a dizzying sense of him falling backwards and then nothing at all. And thank the Six, it feels much better like this where he can’t feel what’s aching in his body anymore. 

He lets it go, drifts on that feeling, because he’s exhausted from being upright and heaving himself hoarse. He didn’t realize how tensed up he had been. The weightlessness of no longer feeling like his muscles would end up breaking bones from being held so tight was relieving and Prompto wasn’t in any rush to wake up from that.

* * *

When Prompto next opens his eyes it’s still dark in the room, like the curtains on the windows are drawn tightly together. He’s in a bed still but this isn’t the hotel they’d rented for the night.

He tries to swallow, eyes tracking over the plastic looking tiles overhead, the lights that are dark spaced between every three or four. The walls are just as white and dull, boring. But the most clear thing to him is the sterile and neutral smell of the room. There’s no longer the lingering salt of the broth from their dinner, not the soap that all four of them had used extensively after a week running around out in the woods. None of the normal smells he wakes up to in a hotel room. With an unsettling realization, he discovers that yes, he is in a hospital.

His first thought is oh god, they can’t afford this. But then his second comes much quicker, a splitting headache that Prompto has only felt when he’d been too close to the swiping paw of a Behemoth and gotten knocked to the side so hard he’d taken a while to stand back up, there’s no other way to hurt this bad. He groans as the sickening wave of a migraine slams into him, greeting him from his sleep. 

Pressure flexes against his hand, between his fingers. 

Prompto turns his head to see Noctis, his lips are moving and his eyes are on him sharply, worry making him seem brighter almost. Prompto doesn’t linger there, not willing to try and lip-read what’s being told to him or asked. He finds that the prince’s hand is tangled in his own, a thumb working over his in distracting figure-eights. That motion continues and something is in Prompto’s other hand, a little plastic tube with a red button on top, he finds when his head turns over that way. 

He gives it a curious press and within minutes, whatever he did starts the take the sharp pounding out of his temples. He gives it one more press for good measure, grateful to whatever it is. Noctis is still tracing over his knuckles, making Prompto feel absolutely drained and he doesn’t fight that comforting feeling when he’s dragged back to sleep. 

* * *

He wakes up again in the same place. But this time it’s brighter. It doesn’t blind him but he definitely feels like pulling a Noctis and rolling over and tugging his arm over his eyes to go back to sleep. However, Gladio and Ignis are by his side in an instant, called to attention at Prompto’s unconscious noise and shift.

Noctis still has his hand, even in deep sleep, head pillowed on his other hand that’s folded on the hospital bed. The plastic guard rail has been shoved down so that Noctis can nap there by Prompto’s hip. 

Something warm squeezes in his chest at the sight and he holds onto Noctis’ hand tighter. 

He glances back to the two still awake, who are watching him with carefully guarded expressions. But Prompto’s been on the road with these men so long, had been hanging out with them in the Citadel longer, that he can read right past those hard expressions. He feels so bad for worrying his friends and that frustration wells up as tears blurring his vision. 

He tries to say ‘I’m sorry’ but it falls out of him with barely any air. Ignis’ eyes get softer and he places a gentle hand on Prompto’s knee before Gladio puts one on his shoulder. 

“It’s okay, Prompto. You’re going to be fine.”  Ignis says, as if this is no big deal at all. But it is. They don’t have the gil to be housing Prompto here. He knows this and yet the reassurances get to him. He leans into his friends’ touches and finds himself comforted. 

Prompto manages to stay awake for the rest of the day. He gets to watch Noctis wake up and try to wipe the drool off his cheek and then keep Prompto from sitting in it. It makes the gunman laugh and dazedly pat at Noctis’ hand. 

“How long have I been out?” He asks, more so to want to confirm his suspicion that he just had a rough night and now that it’s morning he’d fine and they would only have to foot a bill under the ten thousands. But Ignis tells him he’s been in the hospital for just a little over a week and Prompto feels like he might be sick again. 

“Why are we still here?” He starts, panic beginning to rise in his throat. He tries to sit up, ready to bolt out if the room so they don’t have to be a second longer in this place. But Prompto doesn’t get far, barely making it halfway to sitting up all the way when a stab of pain takes his breath away. 

He gasps, both hands clutching at his stomach as if he might be able to press away the pain the longer he holds himself. 

“Woah there hotshot, slow down,” Gladio sets his hand on Prompto’s shoulder and eases him back against the pillows. 

The movement makes Prompto groan terribly, not able to fight the push. 

“The doctors aren’t done with you.” Gladio continues, “they’re gonna come give you some medicine and then see how that works out. And we’re not in any rush to get back out on the road.” 

Prompto looks at the three of them, a whiny protest starting with ‘but-‘ threatening to spill out but Ignis’ hand is suddenly on his knee and Noctis is squeezing his hand again. 

“Stop worrying about staying here, you need it. We’ll come up with the gil later.” 

And that’s it. Noctis is talking to him gently and comforting but he’s using that infuriating tone that he’s used to using when he’s commanding, it leaves Prompto no room to argue and he settles. 

“Fine. But if we’re staying here longer I want something to eat.” Prompto concludes petulantly. 

He’s starving, not sure when the last time he ate was, an IV drip only gets him so far and he knows that when they had gotten him up in random bursts of a few minutes they didn’t get much food into him if the way his growling stomach is anything to go by. Prompto can’t even remember those barely lucid moments but they’re coming back to him in fuzzy pieces. 

“The cafeteria down the hall can serve up some killer pie,” Noctis smiles at him, “course Ignis could do better but it’s what we’ve got for now. And it’s free too so.” With a half shrug the prince sits up from his resting place so close to Prompto. 

Ignis rolls his eyes, hidden by the ruse of him adjusting his glasses when he goes and takes a seat on the chair in the corner of the room. 

“It would be better if Prompto ate something more sustaining than sweets.” Ignis mutters but it’s with barely any meaning to it, and it doesn't matter anyway with Noctis going out the door.

Prompto feels better already.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> user Silverheartlugia2000 gave a wonderful personal comment about gallstone pain (as well as pains after gallbladder removal), so think what yall will but I think this is a good explanation <3


End file.
